I've made my peace with what may happen, since I saw you last.
It was raining again. Whilst it was meant to be the best autumn the UK had ever had, the Oxfordshire weather simply wasn't having it. It would have been fine if Abi could have dressed in her usual branded polo and tracksuit bottom combination, hugged by the warmth of her fleeced rain jacket, but today was not a typical day at the office. Today was a day that everyone around her raved about; the day they got to meet the new season's drivers.
She had enjoyed the drinks ceremony during her first two years, always ending up a little tipsy and chuckling with her fellow engineers and the new drivers whilst they inspected the new car and celebrated their hard work. But this year? Well, it sure wasn't something she was looking forward to.
As the rain eased off, she finally got out of the car. The gravel was damp and left marks upon her suede heels as she grabbed her handbag from the back seat. She'd been as coordinated as possible, but her dress was already a terrible decision. The last few years, it had been jeans-and-a-nice-top, but she had to look her best this year. She had gone to London especially to find the perfect cute yet smart dress for the occasion. £400 later, she left Selfridges not entirely convinced of her choice.
But the difference this year? The difference was the names on the announcement email that joined their invitation to the launch party.
From: claire.williams@williams.com
To: <ALL EMPLOYEES>
Subject: 2019 Launch Event
INTERNAL ONLY: Williams are pleased to announce that the drivers for the 2019 season are Robert Kubica and George Russell. Please find attached the invitation to the 2019 season launch party on the 21st September 2018, where you will have the opportunity to meet the drivers.
George Russell, a name she hadn't heard in two very long years. And it wasn't one she wanted to hear again. Sure, she knew how well he was doing in F2 and how certain he was to move up to F1 next season, but not to Williams. Everyone knew he was better than to be at the dying team that was Williams.
She headed across the gravel and into the offices, smiling at Jackie and Nick on the front desk before heading down to the workshop. Her heels were clicking, and every pair of eyes set upon her as she walked past, still damp golf umbrella in her hand as she approached the lifts.
"Good morning Abigail," Michael smiled as he brushed past. "Looking forward to the party later?" She could see his eyes checking her out.
"Will be great, I'm sure." She called, reaching out to call the lift. As great as it could be, perhaps. It would be good to go and see the car, to socialise with her coworkers, but it would be almost impossible to avoid George.
To her surprise, the lift doors opened to reveal Claire and her entourage.
"Good morning," Abi greeted with a smile, Claire giving her a silent nod and then disappearing through the pass-locked double doors. That was possibly the most contact she had had with their race manager in the two years Abi had been there. Claire was a busy woman, and it was understandable she had little time for the new kids, even as offending as it could sometimes be.
It didn't take long for her to get from the lift to staring blankly at her emails. Delete. Delete. Delete. Move folder. Delete—a common occurrence in the morning.
From: callum.wilson@williams.com
To: abigail.wattslloyd@williams.com
Subject: Tyre Performance Files
Hey Abssss, you got those tyre performance files? I've lost my copy of them again :(
Cal x
Of course, Callum had lost them; she often wondered just how the other apprentice managed to keep his job from the number of lost files or overslept mornings he had. She sent them over and headed to make her morning cup of coffee. Whilst Callum was the only friend she had at work, and he was about as useful as a chocolate teapot most of the time. But he was good company and someone to rant about the place too.
Callum and Abi returned from lunch just after two and sat at her computer, Abi trying to explain the code she had spent her morning working on. But both of them were more engrossed in gossiping and laughing to each other, trying to come up with more terrible Tweets that they could send to the social media team that they could use for the next race weekend.
There was a ruckus from the other end of the room, but the two ignored it, laughing at the email they had compiled to the head of social media instead.
"Do you want a coffee?" Callum asked as they pressed send on the email, and Abi reluctantly returned to her code. The look that Abi shot him was enough to answer his question. "That was a silly question; of course you do." He said with a smile, heading off to the mini kitchen in the middle of the room.
Chat and laughter continued on the other side of the room, but Abi was used to it. Most afternoons were filled with manly banter she never dared get involved in. Instead, she put in an earphone and continued to slam F5 in the hope that it would help get rid of the bugs that littered her code. She knew how to code; she had worked on coding the brake systems since she started at Williams. But something about this was causing her far too much annoyance. There was something weird going on, but her head of department was, of course, off for the rest of the week.
"Coffee," Callum sang as he sat back down and placed the steaming mug beside the keyboard. "Still having problems?" He asked, squinting at the screen and trying to understand what was happening.
"Obviously." Huffed Abi, sitting back in her chair and picking up her mug, cupping it in her hands, long fingers wrapping around the porcelain. Callum took control of the keyboard, tapping keys and adding lines and semi-colons until the hundreds of error messages turned into just a handful of, what they could see, massive ones. "It doesn't make sense; I've not touched it since before the last race." She groaned lips against the rim of the mug.
"Dunno, but there's less for you to wade through," Callum pointed out as more blocks of red text appeared on the screen. To give him credit, Callum had cleared up a fair few of the errors Abi had been wrangling. "But have a chill for the rest of the afternoon, only an hour or so till the par-taaaay." He grinned, picking up his mug of tea and sipping it, not flinching. How he managed to drink black tea within minutes of making it, Abi would never understand.
"Don't remind me." Abi groaned, taking the mouse in her hand and heading to her emails. "Great, more brake analysis for me to look at too. Oh, could this day get any worse?" She said with a characteristically dramatic sigh, looking at the PDF as Callum chuckled and watched over her shoulder.
"George, you haven't met Abi, have you." Abi looked up at the sound of her name, anything to get away from the stupid PDF, and immediately her eyes met those of the rookie who had become quite the celebrity around the Williams office. He smirked and reached a hand out for Abi to shake when she stood.
"No, I haven't, actually." He smiled, palm to palm, as they exchanged an awkward handshake before Abi sat down again.
"And this is Callum; they're on our development programme, learning from the best of the best." The woman who stood beside George said with a proud smile. But the two could not break the eye contact they were holding.
They weren't meant to meet like this - they were meant to meet at the party when Abi could draw his attention, flick her hair, and turn away from him - not engage in what would probably be a complex talk about her work. George was still smirking, bottom lip bit as the woman continued to explain the development program to him, Callum chipping in and smiling at the driver.
"Abi here is taking the lead on the software behind the braking systems on the cars; she's been a great help and has done an amazing job," The praise was not enough to distract her; George's long lashes fluttering as he rose a brow. "Here, why don't you have a look at the work she's been doing." The woman suggested, and Abi had to try her hardest not to groan as she and George placed themselves behind her chair, bending over to look at the screen. At least she got rest-bite from those eyes.
"Uh, we've been having some issues with the software today after the weekend's race... But..." She opened the backup of the code from the week before and ran it, a long nail pointing to the numbers on the screen. "This is the speed to brake time ratio from some test data from Silverstone last year. We need this number to be below 1 to ensure there's enough time for the car to slow to the ideal speed for the degree of the turn that is then needed." She said, clicking back to the PDF she had just been mailed. "As you can see from the weekend's race, we were struggling to keep the number below one on the fifth corner, so I need to go back to the program and adjust the bit that controls the amount of pressure that is put upon the brakes when the brake peddle is pressed. It just controls the sensitivity, essentially." She said, words she had repeated time and time again when she had had her progress reviews. The warm breath on her neck made her heart hammer and words a little shakier than she was used to.
"Impressive stuff," George commented, breath warm on her ear as he looked at the screen. "Got to make sure that's all perfect, though, can't be doing with the brakes failing." He chuckled, straightening himself and shoving his hands into the pockets of his slacks.
"Last thing we want, so it's important we get it sorted for the race next weekend." Abi hummed, swivelling around on her chair and looking at the two. Callum sat in stunned silence, grinning at George as the woman added another explanation to something that, to Abi, made no sense. She could tell George was paying no attention to what the woman was saying from how his eyes gazed over Abi, nodding along but flicking his eyes from chest to waist and back to her face with a gently bitten lip.
"That was great, thanks, Abi, Callum." The woman said with a smile, and George nodded.
"Yeah, was interesting. See you at the drinks later?" He asked, the woman already heading off towards the exit.
"Absolutely!" Callum interjected, bouncing at the opportunity to speak to the driver, though George's eyes were still on her, a hot heat raging in the bottom of Abi's stomach. "Thanks for stopping by, George." He added, still grinning from ear to ear.
"See you 'round, George." Abi said with a smile, turning back to her computer before he could respond. With a nod, he went to find his guide.
Abi dropped her head into her hands and groaned loudly, shoulders dropping as Callum squeaked excitedly.
"How amazing was that? Getting to show George your work! Have you seen him in the F2? He's been doing amazing." Callum rambled, though Abi was only half paying attention.
The last time she had seen George, he was coddled by his duvet and sleepily asking her to stay for breakfast, practically having to break his fingers so she could make her exit. She had for sure tried new things that night.
"Yeah, a great racer, isn't he." She said with a smile and a nod, picking up her headphones from her desk. "I need to get this sorted, though, Cal. But come grab me when you go to the drinks, yeah?" She said, looking at him as he nodded and picked up his mug, catching a glimpse of George through the glass panes along the wall as he headed off to one of the other departments.
Perhaps if things had been different after that warm June morning, she wouldn't have felt as frosty around the man. But she didn't know what any other possible scenario could have been aside from deep hate for the man who played her. They say that time is a healer, but it was apparent it would take more than that for Abi to heal.